


The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated

by themis



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Dark, F/M, Flashback, M/M, Magic, Martial Arts, Non-Sequential Time, Pre-Canon, The Dancing Dove, Unreliable POV Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-18
Updated: 2006-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:13:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themis/pseuds/themis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You were dead a year ago."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated

“You were dead a year ago,” Liam grits out.

“Yes.” Roger is looking at him through his lashes.

*

Liam Ironarm first met Roger of Conté in a cheap Carthaki tavern favored by the university students. Their philosophy tended at times to be a little over his head, but the students were still why Liam was there. They weren’t very demanding, generally. And neither, generally, was Liam.

The students were also why Roger was there. Liam didn’t realize that at the time, and would regret it later.

Except for the proprietor, the two of them were the oldest people in the tavern. Liam wasn’t a student, not anymore, and he could recognize foolish, youthful idealism for what it was when he heard it. It was hard to hide the honest reaction to statements like “but the emperor should simply abolish marriage and…” when someone his own age was sitting so close.

Roger shared wry, faintly amused looks with him over the students’ heads. They were so gods-blessed earnest. Liam wasn’t certain if it was endearing or nauseating, but he was certain that students were no longer quite so appealing.

Students didn’t know how to laugh so low, never mind that they were much too poor to buy other people drinks.

Liam wasn’t generally demanding, but that didn’t mean he lacked any taste.

*

Roger’s bedroom is warm, very warm. Even for early summer, even for Carthak, even for a room without windows. The sheets stick to their skin and then _they_ stick to each other. The heat wraps around Liam and makes him dizzy for long moments. Roger is also making him dizzy, like sex is going out of style. Liam is aware of nothing so much as the pulsing of his blood and the sheen of sweat that brings their bodies closer and closer together. They slide and stick at the same time, always closer, closer, closer.

Then Roger twists and Liam tenses and they both collapse, gasping, onto each other.

*

He sleeps fitfully, when he sleeps alone. And he wakes, covered in sweat and wishing he had stayed asleep though sleep was no gift. Not now. Not after Alanna had left him for her prince, her thief and her brother. Her brother…

Liam wanted to say something to Alanna about her brother and Roger, because it couldn’t be good, whatever was going on there, but he never _could_ manage to.

*

It was odd, finding out who they were the morning after. Liam hadn’t intended to stay that long but it was impossible to know what time it was in Roger’s room. Roger seemed to possess amazing abilities to withstand heat; he never completely stopped touching Liam.

“You’re the Shang Dragon,” he purred. He had good hands. They were almost impossible to resist. “Stay. Here,” he added, as if it weren’t immediately obvious.

“I have exercises to do this morning,” Liam said, but he didn’t move.

“We can exercise here,” Roger said. Where his hands had been, he placed his lips and his teeth and his tongue. Liam let him.

*

Roger told Liam once that he was a man who got what he wanted. Liam hadn’t listened then, though he should have. Liam rarely listened to anything Roger said; it wasn’t really an integral part of their relationship. That would prove to be a mistake.

Liam would have benefited greatly had he had more of a tendency to listen to people like Roger. He didn’t have that tendency.

*

“I was never so happy as when I heard she killed you,” Liam says.

Roger smiles. “Is that why you fucked her?”

Liam falters. “No-o.”

Three minutes ago he would have sworn that wasn’t the reason for it.

Roger laughs. Roger always laughs.

“She’ll kill you again,” Liam says.

Roger’s smile sharpens. “That’s an empty threat.” (Have his eyes become bluer? Since he died?)

Liam says nothing. From him it is a perfectly empty threat. He turns on his heel and walks back into the mass of people gathered to meet Thayet.

His knees almost collapse from relief. Almost.

*

Liam hadn’t always hated magic.

(Really, his entire acquaintance – if you could call it that – with Roger was a mistake. If one were being jealous. After all - )

After all...

*

"No," he said.

Roger’s eyes glinted cold, cold blue in the torchlight. "No?"

Liam stepped back and found a wall where he hadn’t remembered one. His eyes widened.

"You’re the Shang Dragon," Roger said lazily. “Funny how helpless you are here, isn’t it. You can’t even roar, Dragon.”

Liam found he couldn’t. He was not a man given to panic, not usually. Panic, he now found, would have been helpful though he didn’t have the option. Not here, not now.

“Turn around,” Roger said sweetly. And then, because Liam couldn’t, he turned him around himself.

*

But no, that wasn’t real. That was a dream and Liam had always, always hated magic.

That was only a dream. That was only a nightmare.

*

Liam sparred with Alexander of Tirragen. Tirragen won, because he was really, eerily good. He was also entirely insane and Liam meant to tell someone, but he met Roger’s gaze when he left the practice court and any thought of telling anyone anything left his mind completely.

*

Liam’s eyes were clear. "She killed you a year ago."

Roger slid his hand low, pressed up close against Liam. "Is that what they say?"


End file.
